A dead bat found at Sunlake High School tested positive for rabies, prompting the principal to send a letter home to parents Monday to alert them to the situation and provide information about the disease. We have no evidence that anyone at the school has been bitten by a bat, so we are confident that no one has anything to fear, Principal Steve Williams wrote in the letter. Sunlake High has been dealing with a bat infestation for a few months and has been working with Ecologix Pest Elimination and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission to evict the creatures. Williams said there has been no evidence of bats in more than a week and no bats were ever spotted inside the school. The bats had roosted in spaces between the outer brick facade and inner cement block walls of the school, he wrote. The dead bat was sent to the Kansas State Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory about a week ago for rabies testing, Williams wrote. Once the Pasco County School District learned of the positive test results, Superintendent Kurt Browning and district staff consulted Mike Napier, administrator of the Florida Department of Health in Pasco. He advised that although it is uncommon for humans to contract rabies from bats, contact with live or dead bats should be avoided, Williams wrote. The principal also quoted information from the Centers for Disease Control that said the United States sees only one or two human rabies cases per year, and there is no risk of humans contracting other diseases from bats. In addition, people cant get rabies from having contact with bat guano (feces), blood, or urine, or from simply touching a bat on its fur, the principals letter said. Only through a bite can a human contract rabies from a bat. He also asked parents to remind the students of safety advice from the CDC, including dont handle unfamiliar animals, wild or domestic, even if they seem friendly. hisz.rsoe.hu/alertmap/site/index.php?pageid=event_desc&edis_id=BH-20141014-45629-USA
Posted on: Tue, 14 Oct 2014 07:54:00 +0000
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